The good ol’ Crown. Toyota made generation after generation of these cars, yet they stayed pretty much the same. Well, it was the tried and tested American model: keep the chassis and engine going for eons, but put some fresh styling on top every three to four years. It served the Big Three well and Toyota applied it with their customary aptitude in the Crown.

These are now getting rare in my neck of the woods. When I first visited Burma five years ago, they were still fairly common, but things have changed fast in this country. Luckily, I was able to snap one in reasonable nick. And not a moment too soon, as I’m sure these will disappear completely within the next couple of years. This 8th generation Crown was a bit of a dinosaur by the time it was launched in late 1987, and extinction beckons.

The S 130 Crown is not a car that was exported far and wide, unlike some of its predecessors. Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand) and Australia were still on the Toyota Crown’s target list, but by then Toyota had positioned the Camry and the new Lexus marque in North America, and the Carina in Europe. I’m not even sure any LHD versions were made; I did see a couple post-facelift S130 left-hookers here, but I have no idea where they would have been sold when new.

The S130 Crown still used body-on-frame construction, based on the S40 chassis, essentially unchanged from the early ‘60s. From the get-go, plusher Crowns had better coil-sprung rear axles, whereas the standard saloons made do with leafs. By the 7th generation, an all-independent suspension was available on certain models too, such as the Royal Saloon.

This particular example being a Super Deluxe (Crown-speak for “lower mid-range”), it should have the old cart springs. And a longitudinal 2-litre DOHC straight-6. By late 1987, which automaker beside Toyota (and possibly Nissan) would launch a new flagship model with those kinds of specs?

If you wanted something a bit different, you could go for the Royal Saloon (top pic), which had more gadgets along with an independent rear suspension and a 3-litre engine. Or the Super Select hardtop, with its cool roofline (though it’s not a real hardtop per se). Or the Super Deluxe station wagon, with its nifty double rear wipers, which I’ve sighted in traffic before. Crowns galore! But when 1991 came around, there was change in the air.

Facelifted Toyota Crown S130 – a bit overdone on the botox.

In late 1991, the S130 Crown was extensively relooked and unfortunately lost its quirky ‘80s touches, though it did enable it to carry on until 1995. But a new “Crown family” was also spawned in parallel. The hardtop and Royal Saloon were given their own larger bodyshell (Crown S140) in 1991 and Toyota took the Lexus LS’s platform and V8 to create the even swankier Crown Majesta, which was really a completely unrelated car. The smaller and narrower Crown Comfort was soon created too for the fleet/taxi market, also unrelated to the genuine Crown bloodline: the Crown, once the daring of the taxi trade, had become too bloated to be of use. It all became quite confusing, and remains so to this day.

So all the more reason to celebrate this venerable S130, from a simpler time, when ‘60s BOF technology, once married to garish ‘80s styling, made for an acceptable car for the well-heeled subjects of Emperor Showa. This plain Jane version, with its dull grey paintjob and manual transmission, must be extremely rare in Japan now. They likely all left for other climes, though perhaps not better ones – the Russian Far-East is very keen on old Crowns, it seems.

Myanmar’s not a great place to retire either. Terrible roads, dodgy petrol, hot and humid conditions and bad driving are rife here. It seems this one has escaped its inevitable fate thus far. Uneasy lies the Crown…

22 Comments

The biggest market for LHD Toyota Crown is PRC and ROC. Both states favored Toyota Crown for the middle layer government use around the ’70s to the ’90s. PRC’s relationship with Japan soured mysteriously and Toyota Crown was no longer appropriate for the role, then in ROC the diversity of government vehicles increased in the later years, ranging from Cadillac DTS to Nissan Sunny these days. However, LHD Toyota Crown is still assembled in PRC and I don’t believer other LHD market has a stronger demand than PRC, even though the current demand isn’t much.

Both states were initially RHD until too many American cars flooded in the ’40s.

The Toyota above was registered in PRC and the one below came from ROC.

Ah, the Chinese connection!… Makes a lot of sense.
I know an expat family here who drive a mid-’90s S130 with LHD and diplomatic plates. They told me they bought it off the Thai embassy here. Guess the Thais got that car through China.

When I moved to China at the beginning of 2001, these were still common, although “Red Flag” Audis (older 100s, if I recall correctly) were more frequently seen, along with newer models from a variety of makers.

I was originally assigned a brown Nissan Cedric, the Crown’s boxier competitor, with that brown velour upholstery the Japanese used to favor, and a power rear seat. Too soon, it was replaced with a Japanese Passat, the same as the first J.Mays style Passat in the US, but with a welcome 8in or so stretch in the rear compartment. (Yes, I had a driver. Company wouldn’t let its employees drive in China. If you’ve ever driven there, you’d know why…)

Never could figure out the Japanese insistence on the outside mirrors way down on the front fenders. How effective could they be down there? Cannot recall any other market in the world where this was common.

A common explanation is that it allows the vehicle to be narrower, an important factor on Japan’s cramped roads. Also, taxes on some cars were based on width, apparently, so bringing the mirrors in also helped in that regard. Those are just the most often-cited reasons I found, however; there could be others.

Actually, Great Britain used fender mounted mirrors for awhile, too. And I’m going to guess that these weren’t the only 2 countries where cars had fender mounted mirrors. It’s only a guess, but I would imagine this design “feature” lasted longer in countries that had steering wheels on the right side of the car.

Aside from width restrictions (which also existed in the U.S until the early 60s) I would think having the mirror on the passenger side of the car so far forward MIGHT make it easier to back a car into a narrow space….but that’s just a guess.

Great find, and thanks for showing us! That generation of Crown wasn’t sold in Australia. Pretty sure the last we got was the S120, and they shifted precious few of those. Once the Cressida hit its stride by the early ’80s it was pretty much all over for the Crown here. Amazing to read that they still used the old body-on-ancient-frame design; I thought they might have gone unitary by then.
The one you found seems to be in great shape bodily, though by the look of that taillight it’s blowing a bit of smoke by now. Are rebuilds a viable option in Myanmar?

The Toyota Crown isn’t going to disappear anytime soon in my town, Hong Kong. The base model is still being sold to the taxi trade and I’ve been in the back of two brand new ones in the past three days. They replaced the Mercedes 190 Poton in the early 70s and have been the ‘official’ taxi ever since.

I remember the Hong Kong taxis vividly from my 1st trip to Asia back in 1999. Back then, the taxis were all S130 Crowns I believe, but they were also five-pax cars: three in the back, two in the front. Most of the ones I remember had manual “four on the tree” gearchange, which seemed so antediluvian. Reminded me of my father’s old 504.

Simply being over 25 yo and owned by someone in a club that participates in the Club Permit Scheme.

More recently they have introduced an “M” plate intended for vehicles with enough modifications to require an engineer’s certificate (if they were registered normally), and this would certainly apply here!

Really like the traditional lines on these cars, sort of direction Lincoln should have gone. As others have noted the fender-mounted mirrors were done to classify the cars as narrower for taxes and narrow roadways; I still think these mirrors ruin the overall look.

I always want to know how this vintage of Crown handles from the driver peospective. And wonder if it feels like Benz w126, mid 80s Chevy caprice, 2013 Ford Crown Victoria, mid. 80s front drive Cadillac. Note mid 80s Cressida was sold as sport sedan in US, so it is no a small Crown.

I dream one day I gets a JDM Crown Comfort with desiel and column manual shifter. Or I get a 2000s Toyota century, Japanese Bentley

There is still alot of CROWNs on the road all over the mideast.i remember when saddam invaded Kuwait in early 90s you could see tons of those& CRESSIDAs fleeing into iran.i remember riding in one&compare to my dad’s paykan that thing was like a spaceship.great memories.